Yekaterinburg
|leader_name=Alexander Yakob |leader_name_ref= |representative_body=City Duma |representative_body_ref=Charter of Yekaterinburg, Article 24.1 |area_km2= |area_km2_ref= |pop_2010census=1349772 |pop_2010census_rank=4th |pop_2010census_ref= |pop_density= |pop_density_as_of= |pop_density_ref= |pop_latest= |pop_latest_date= |pop_latest_ref= |established_date=November 18, 1723 |established_title= |established_date_ref= |current_cat_date=1796 |current_cat_date_ref= |prev_name1=Yekaterinburg |prev_name1_date=1924 |prev_name1_ref= |prev_name2=Sverdlovsk |prev_name2_date=1991 |prev_name2_ref= |postal_codes=620000 |postal_codes_ref=Ekaterinburg.com. General Information |dialing_codes=343 |dialing_codes_ref= |website=http://www.ekburg.ru/ |website_ref= |commonscat=Yekaterinburg |date=May 2010 }} Yekaterinburg ( ), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg, is the fourth-largest city in Russia and the administrative center of Sverdlovsk Oblast, located in the middle of the Eurasian continent, on the border of Europe and Asia.http://www.ekburg.ru/english_version/http://www.ekaterinburg-ural.com/where-ekaterinburg-russia Population: 1,349,772 (2010 Census). Yekaterinburg is the main industrial and cultural center of the Ural Federal District. Between 1924 and 1991, the city was named Sverdlovsk ( ) after the Communist party leader Yakov Sverdlov. History ]] It was founded in 1723 by Vasily Tatishchev and Georg Wilhelm de Gennin and named after Tsar Peter the Great's wife Catherine I (Yekaterina).Haywood, A. J. (2010). Siberia: A Cultural History, Oxford University Press, p. 32 The official date of the city's foundation is November 18, 1723. It was granted town status in 1796. from 1910 shows the tallest building in the pre-revolutionary Urals, the Great Zlatoust bell tower]] Soon after the October Revolution, on July 17, 1918, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their children Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasia, and Tsarevich Alexey were murdered by the Bolsheviks at the Ipatiev House in this city. Other members of the Romanov family were killed at Alapayevsk the day after. In 1977, the Ipatiev House was demolished by order of Boris Yeltsin, to prevent it from being used as a rallying location for monarchists. He later became the first President of Russia and represented the people at the funeral of the Tsar in 1998. stands on the site of the Ipatiev House, where the Romanovs—the last royal family of Russia—were murdered]] On August 24, 2007, the BBC reported that Russian archaeologists had found the remains of two children of Russia's last Tsar. The remains were discovered in the ground close to the site in Yekaterinburg where the Tsar, his wife, and their three other daughters were found in 1991 along with the remains of four servants. The 2007 discoveries are thought to be those of Tsarevich Alexei and either Maria or Anastasia. Archaeologist Sergei Pogorelov said bullets found at the burial site indicate the children had been shot. He told Russian television the newly unearthed bones belonged to two young people: a young male aged roughly 10–13 and a young woman about 18–23. Ceramic vessels found nearby appear to have contained sulfuric acid, consistent with an account by one of the Bolshevik firing squad, who said that after shooting the family they doused the bodies in acid to destroy the flesh and prevent them becoming objects of veneration. The Tsar's remains were given a state funeral in July 1998. During the 1930s, Yekaterinburg was one of several places developed by the Soviet government as a center of heavy industry, during which time the famous Uralmash was built. Then, during World War II, many state technical institutions and whole factories were relocated to Yekaterinburg away from war-affected areas (mostly Moscow), with many of them staying in Yekaterinburg after the victory. The Hermitage Museum collections were also partly evacuated from Leningrad to Yekaterinburg (known as Sverdlovsk during Soviet times) in July 1941 and remained there until October 1945. The lookalike five-story apartment blocks that remain today in Kirovsky, Chkalovsky, and other residential areas of Yekaterinburg sprang up in the 1960s, under the direction of Khrushchev's government. On May 1 1960, an American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers while under the employ of the CIA, was shot down over Sverdlovsk Oblast. He was captured, put on trial, found guilty of espionage and sentenced to seven years of hard labour. He served only about a year before being exchanged for Rudolph Abel, a high-ranking KGB spy, who had been apprehended in the United States in 1957. There was an anthrax outbreak in Yekaterinburg in April and May 1979, which was attributed to a release from the Sverdlovsk-19 military facility.Matthew S. Meselson, et al., "The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak of 1979", Science 266:5188 (18 November 1994): 1202–1208. During the 1991 coup d'état attempt, Sverdlovsk, the home city of President Boris Yeltsin, was selected by him as a reserve capital for the Russian Federation, in the event that Moscow became too dangerous for the Russian government. A reserve cabinet headed by Oleg Lobov was sent to the city, where Yeltsin enjoyed strong popular support at that time.Martin McCauley, "Who's who in Russia since 1900", Routledge, 1997: p.133. Shortly after the failure of the coup and subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union, the city regained its historical name Yekaterinburg. Administrative and municipal status Yekaterinburg is the administrative center of the oblast.Law #30-OZ Within the framework of the administrative divisions, it is, together with twenty-nine rural localities, incorporated as the City of Yekaterinburg —an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Yekaterinburg is incorporated as Yekaterinburg Urban Okrug.Law #85-OZ Geography and climate Yekaterinburg is situated on the border of Europe and Asia, east of Moscow, on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains on the Iset River. It is surrounded by partially wooded plains, mainly cultivated for agricultural purposes, and small lakes. The city features a humid continental climate (Dfb) under the Köppen climate classification. The winter lasts for about six months—from October until the middle of April—and the temperature may fall to , though rarely lower than to . Summer in the Urals is short, with warm weather for only 65–70 days and an average temperature of . The city's location "behind" the mountain range and highly variable winds mean that the weather is quite changeable from one day to the next and from year to year. |date=August 2010 |source 2 = HKO }} Population skyscraper in the background]] Having decreased during the 1990s, the population started to grow slowly in the 21st century. Economy The main areas of the city's industry are machinery, metal processing, and ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. Recently the commercial economy has improved, and business centers like Yekaterinburg-City have been planned. One of the tallest buildings in the area Antey 3 is a skyscraper which is now complete. It is the tallest structure in Russia outside of Moscow. Ural Airlines has its head office in Yekaterinburg.Home page. Ural Airlines. Retrieved on 18 July 2010. "Address: Utrenniy 1g, Yekaterinburg Russia, 620025, SITA SVXTOU6" Russian address: Home page. "Адрес: 620025, Россия, Екатеринбург, пер. Утренний, 1г" Transportation , built in 1794–1820]] Yekaterinburg is an important railway junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with lines reaching all parts of the Ural Mountains and the rest of Russia. As the economy grew stronger after the slump of the 1990s, several European airlines started or resumed flying to the city's Koltsovo International Airport (SVX). These include Turkish Airlines, Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Finnair. Yekaterinburg is also served by the smaller Yekaterinburg Aramil Airport. The city's public transit network includes many tram, bus, trolleybus, Marshrutka routes and Yekaterinburg Metro which opened in 1991. Today, the Yekaterinburg Metro consists of one line, with a total of eight stations. Education ]] The Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (UB RAS), as well as numerous scientific research institutes and establishments are situated in Yekaterinburg. With its 16 state-owned universities and educational academies, as well as a number of private higher education institutions (as of 2005), Yekaterinburg is considered the leading educational and scientific center of the Urals. These institutions include the Ural Federal University (on base Ural State University and Ural State Technical University), Ural State Pedagogical University, Ural State University of Forestry, Ural State Mining University, Ural State University of Railway Transport, Russian State Vocational Pedagogics University, Ural State University of Economics, Military Institute of Artillery, Ural State Conservatory, Ural State Agricultural Academy, Ural State Law Academy, Ural State Academy of Medicine, Ural State Academy of Performing Arts, Ural Academy of Public Service, Institute of International Relations, and the Urals Academy of Architecture. Culture The city has several dozen libraries, including the V. G. Belinsky Scientific Library, which is the largest public library in Sverdlovsk Oblast. Famous for its theaters, Yekaterinburg is also home to some very popular theatre companies: the Yekaterinburg Academic Ballet and Opera Company, the Sverdlovsk Academic Theater of Musical Comedy, the Yekaterinburg Academic Dramatic Theater, the Yekaterinburg Theater for Young Spectators, the Volkhonka (a popular chamber theatre), and the Kolyada Theater (a chamber theatre founded by Russian playwright, producer and actor Nikolai Kolyada). Yekaterinburg is the center of New Drama, a movement of contemporary Russian playwrights Nikolai Kolyada, Vasily Sigarev, Konstantin Kostenko, the Presnyakov brothers, and Oleg Bogayev. Yekaterinburg is often called the capital of contemporary dance for a number of famous dance companies residing in the city: the Kipling, the Provincial Dances, the Tantstrest, and a special department of contemporary dance at the Yekaterinburg University of Humanities. A number of popular Russian rock bands, such as Urfin Dzhyus, Chaif, Chicherina, Nautilus Pompilius, Nastya, Trek, Agata Kristi and Smyslovye Gallyutsinatsii, were originally formed in Yekaterinburg (Ural Rock is often considered as a particular variety of rock music. Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg are actually considered to be the main centers of the genre in Russia). Also, some famous opera singers—Boris Shtokolov, Yuri Gulyayev, Vera Bayeva—graduated from the Urals State Conservatory. The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra (currently conducted by Dmitry Liss), founded by Mark Paverman and located in Yekaterinburg, is also very popular in Russia and in Europe, as well as the Ural Academic Popular Chorus, a famous folk-singing and dance ensemble. There are over thirty museums in Yekaterinburg, including several museums of Ural minerals and jewelery, art galleries, one of the largest collections anywhere of Kasli mouldings (a traditional kind of cast-iron sculpture in the Urals), and the famous Shigirskaya Kladovaya (Шигирская кладовая), or Shigir Collection, which includes the oldest wood sculpture in the world: the Shigir Idol, found near Nevyansk and estimated to have been made about 9,500 years ago. Only here can you see a collection of Nevyansk icons- in the Nevyansk Icon Museum, with more than 300 icons representing the 18th through the 20th centuries on display. Vladimir Yelizarov's Recording Studio SVE Records is based in Yekaterinburg. The studio is in a private residence built in 1837 under the title "The House of the Misters", in one of the historical centers of Yekaterinburg city, two hundred meters from Verkh-Isetsky Lake. In 1987, American singer Tina Turner recorded two tracks, which later appeared on her 1989 album Foreign Affair, whilst in the city as part of her highly acclaimed Break Every Rule World Tour. ]] Yekaterinburg also has a circus building, and one of the tallest incomplete architectural structures in the world, the Yekaterinburg TV Tower. There are also a number of unusual monuments: e. g. a popular landmark Keyboard monument and a monument to Michael Jackson. ]] Sports *Association football club FC Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast plays in the Russian First Division. *Futsal club MFK Viz-Sinara Yekaterinburg are the current Russian champions and the champions of UEFA Futsal Cup in 2008. *Women basketball club UMMC Ekaterinburg are the current Russian champions and the champions of EuroLeague Women in 2003. *Ice hockey club Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg plays in the Kontinental Hockey League. *Bandy club SKA Sverdlovsk http://www.skaburg.narod.ru/ is one of the classical teams in which The King of Bandy, Nikolay Durakov Illustraded History Bandy played. International relations , a gift of the German Consulate General to the City of Yekaterinburg]] Consulates The United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and several other countries have consulates in Yekaterinburg. BRIC Summit The BRIC countries met for their first official summit on 16 June 2009, in Yekaterinburg, with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev, Manmohan Singh, and Hu Jintao, the respective leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China, all attending. The foreign ministers of the BRIC countries had also met in Yekaterinburg previously on May 16 2008. Twin towns and sister cities Yekaterinburg is a sister city of: * Plzeň, Czech Republic * Wuppertal, Germany, since 1993 * San Jose, United States, since 1992 * Guangzhou, China, since July 10, 2002 * Genoa, Italy * Ferentino, Italy * Incheon, South Korea * Most, Czech Republic * Kanpur, India Notable people *Julia Lipnitskaia, figure skater *Maxim Kovtun, figure skater *Vera Bazarova, pairs figure skater *Vera Sessina, rhythmic gymnast *Irina Antonenko, Miss Russia 2010 *Pavel Bazhov, folklorist and children's author *Sergey Tchepikov, Olympic biathlon competitor *Chiang Fang-liang, former first lady of Taiwan *Pavel Datsyuk, ice hockey player *Nikolay Karpol, national women volleyball team coach *Nikolai Khabibulin, hockey player *Alexei Khvostenko, avant-garde poet, singer-songwriter, artist, and sculptor *Ilya Kormiltsev, poet, translator, publisher *Vladislav Krapivin, children's author *Nikolay Krasovsky, mathematician *Old Man Bukashkin *Iskander Makhmudov, businessman *Gennady Mesyats, vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences *Ernst Neizvestny, sculptor *Oleg Platonov, writer, historian, and economist *Eduard Rossel, ex-governor of Sverdlovsk Oblast *Vladimir Tretyakov, ex-rector of the Ural State University * Lev Vainshtein, Olympic shooter *Sergei Vonsovsky, physicist *Boris Yeltsin, politician, the first President of the Russian Federation *Denis Galimzyanov, sprinter cyclist *Olga Kotlyarova, Olympic runner *Vassily Sigarev, playwright Other *A ballistic missile submarine of the Project 667BDRM Delfin class (NATO reporting name: Delta IV) has been named ''Ekaterinburg'' (K-84/'807') in honor of the city. *The asteroid 27736 Ekaterinburg was named in the city's honor on 1 June 2007. References Notes Sources * * * External links *Official website of Yekaterinburg *Official website of Yekaterinburg *Panoramic views of Yekaterinburg *[http://yekaterinburgnews.com YekaterinburgNews], online newspaper of Yekaterinburg * Category:Yekaterinburg Category:Established in 1723 Category:Cities and towns in Sverdlovsk Oblast Category:Yekaterinburgsky Uyezd Category:History of Ural